Vienna is a city with so many interesting places for visiting that one month maybe could be not enough, but at least it is a good time for knowing the most important monuments and sights.

Although it doesn’t matter the season you arrive to Vienna, because, as I explained before we always find activities to do along the year, it is good to visit first the main churches and monuments. As Vienna has an excellent public transportation you can get the subway or the tram for reaching these places. The majority are in the down town, in the center of the city.

The first one, the symbol of the city, St. Stephan Cathedral, which is one of the most important religious gothic monuments in Europe and is located in the square of the same name, Stephansplatz. From here, you can start your journey to other monuments and places, depending on your time in Vienna.

On a good Sunday and if you like walking, going through Graben, the shopping avenue, and taking  Kohlmarkt, you arrive at the Imperial Palace (Hofburg). Its main entrance, called Michaelertor, was built at the end of the nineteen century.You cannot miss of knowing the imperial rooms, the Sizi Museum and the Treasure Chamber, which have most of the imperial history of the Habsburg Emperors. These museums are enough for one day.

The following days you can continue your travel through the Heldenplatz (Heroes Square) and the New Imperial Palace, visiting the National Library and the Ethnology Museum. From this place you arrive to the most famous avenue since the imperial age, the Ring. If you are not tired and have enough time, you can visit the “Twins Museums”, the Museum of Natural History and The National Museum of Art, which has the fourth most important painture gallery in the world. Between them, there is the monument to Maria Theresa Empress. From there you can reach in some minutes to the Opera, one of the most famous buildings in the world.

The other famous places are the St. Charles Church, some minutes from the Opera, the most important Baroque Church of Vienna, and from there you can take the tram D to visiting other treasure: the Belvedere Palace, built for Eugene Prince, where you find other interesting galleries and of course its fabulous gardens. These treasures deserve one day at least for visiting.

Other weekend you can use it for going to the famous Summer Palace: the Schönbrunn, the Yellow Palace of Maria Theresa, which deserves at least one day for visiting its enormous gardens, museums and zoo. Finally you can take other weekend for going to the Town Hall (Rathaus),  with its neo-gothic style, the Parlament, (helenistic style), representing the democracy, although it was built during the imperial time, the Burgtheater and the University.

On the weekdays, you always will find places and typical restaurants to visit, particularly in down town. While you traverse the narrow streets in the center,  don’t forget to attend some famous art galleries I mentioned some days ago: Albertina, Liechestien and Leopold Museums, very famous around the world for their fantastic art treasures, from the Middle Ages to the Modern.

As I told before, one month is not enough, but if you are anxious to know more places and if the wheater is good, you can enjoy in the Danube Island, the Prater Park and the Stadt Park, the most known places for sports and relaxing time.

Das sind Bei (links), Me (mitte), und Karine ( rechts).

In class, we have been working on perfecting the Akkusative and Nomanative.  We can use possessive articles.  Now, we are starting to put ideas together instead of having simple sentences in class all of the time.  We are learning more each day!

Gestern, ich lerne Österreich hat eine lacrosse Team!  Ich möchte spielen in dem Team.

Vienna

Vienna is a city where we have many facilities for all kinds of sports, particularly cycling, walking and jogging, due to the great quantity of parks and green spaces we find along the city, even during winter time. I haven’t seen so many cycles as in Vienna in my life.

I like walking in Stadt Park and Botanic Garden. During weekends, I like to go to Heurigers (typical restaurants outside the city) with my family and walking, when weather allows, in many places as Prater park, which is very big and interesting. I like also Donauinsel, (a beautiful island in the Danube River) where we can do many sports outside. During summer, people can even swim.

At home, I prefer to do yoga, particularly during weekdays, due I don’t have enough time because I am studying very hard in DeutschAkademie. During leisure time, I also like to go shopping, although we don’t have many commercial centers near my home. I live in third District, in the heart of the city.

Mein Lieblingsessen ist scharf essen.  Aber, Österreich hat kein scharfes Essen.

Karine, Bei, and I went shopping at the Nashmarkt on Saturday. Karine is a student in the class, and Bei is one of my colleagues.  After shopping, we walked around the Habsburg palace, and then went to Klosterneuburg to have dinner at a Heurigen.

Das Rote Wien und das Nationalsozialistische Wien

In diesem Programm lernen wir Wien von einer ganz anderen Seite kennen lernen als bisher. Wir werden keine prunkvollen Bauwerke sehen, welche uns an die Zeit der k.k. Monarchie erinnern sollen. Wir werden uns vielmehr mit einer sehr schwierigen und traurigen Zeit auseinander setzen – der Zeit vom Ende des ersten Weltkrieges bis ca. 1950 – und Gedenkstätten und Orte der Erinnerung besichtigen.

Das Kuturprogramm findet jeden Donnerstag Nachmittag statt und ist für Schüler der DeutschAkademie gratis!
Möchtet ihr auch außerhalb des Kurses Deutsch lernen und mehr über Wien erfahren? Habt ihr Lust, neue Freunde mit denselben Interessen zu finden?
Dann registriert euch noch heute im 3. Stock der DeutschAkademie für das Kulturprogramm!

Yesterday was my eigth day in Deutsch Akademie and I was really excited because I learned a lot.

Until now, I have acquired more vocabulary, which includes more pronouns, nouns and adjectives. Regarding Grammar, I am able to build complete sentences, because we know more verbs and their conjugation. Now, I can distinguish the correct time of the verbs and I am improving my writing. It is incredible that I can talk more than when I came the first day, beacause we make many interactive dialogues and group activities.

In Grammar, I also know more about prepositions and adverbs. My listening also has been improved because I can understand more when my teacher and my class mates speak. Yeserday we learned to build more complete sentences with subjects, nouns, verbs, adjectives and complements.

I am very happy about my progress in German. I think that, although I have a lot of work learning in the mornings and doing homeworks in the afternoons, this was the quick and best way for advancing in the learning of this difficult language.

Wir haben 9 Studenten in der Klasse.  Sehen Sie die Fotos? Auf dem Foto, ich habe ein rosa T-Shirt. Die Hälfte arbeitet in der Forschung oder studiert für PhD. Elliot ist ein Musiker und Cynthia ist eine Köchin. Regina kommt aus den USA und sie ist eine Lehrerin. Arbert ist jung. Er ist 16 Jahre alt! Er ist ein Student. Am Wochenende, Ales macht Schnaps in Tschechien. Lisa ist die Lehrerin in der Klasse. Sie hat ein lila T-Shirt (auf dem Foto).

Above I have 3 photos that I took from the Hundertwasser house. The architecture is very unique, with bright colors, uneven floors, wavy lines, and trees growing out of the building!

My friends and I have explored the city quite a bit in the month that I’ve been here so far. We’ve walked to the Naschmarkt from Klosterneuburg (4 hours). It was quite a pretty walk through the vineyards. We’ve explored many Heurige. Those are my favorite places to get a bite to eat. I’ve gone through the MozartHaus and the Belvedere. My favorite part about Vienna is the Hunderwasser arcitecture.

In Deutschkurs, things are coming along. We’re learning about the Nomanativ and the Akkusativ this week. One assignment we had last week was to create a conversation from a picture. Yi and I worked together on this. We named our characters Thom and Simon. Here is their conversation:

T: Guten Tag!

S: Guten Tag, Thom.  Wie geht es Ihnen?

T: Mir geht es sehr gut, und Ihnen?

S: Es geht.  Ich bin müde.

T: Wo wohnen Sie?

S: Ich wohne in Antartika.

T: Warum sind Sie hier?

S: Ich bin ein Student.

T: Stimmt das? Wie alt sind Sie?

S: Ich bin 30 Jahre alt. Und Sie?

T: Ich bin 42 Jahre alt.

S: Auf Wiedersehen!

T: Wiedersehen!

Vienna is a city where you never get bored, because in all the seasons there are different cultural and musical events for enjoying.

In  autumn and winter, if you don’t like to be outside because the cold, you can visit a great amount of galleries of art, full of permanent and temporal exhibitions, which show the history of art since the Middle Ages until the modern times. For example,  last autumn, I visited Albertina for looking an exhibition of the genious Vincent Van Gogh and the Secession Museum with the enormous murals from Gustav Klimt, the Viennese precursor in the modern art. I really prefer the modern art, although the Middle Ages Art also is very interesting for me. You can also find a great quantity of this last art in churches and statues along the city. I hope to visit next autumn the Museum of History of Art and the Museum of Natural History, both located in the Ring, because I only could visit their buildings outside. Between them, there is a monument in memory of the Emperor Maria Theresa.

You cannot miss of visiting Museums Quartier, which is one of the 10 most important museums in the world, which have art of all the ages and siecles. Also the Leopold and Liechenstein Museums have interesting permanent and temporal exhibitions during all the year.

Since Vienna is the city of the music, it is easy to attend to classic and modern concerts all the year. Last winter, I could attend the concert of the famous Singer Children of Vienna in the ancient Chapel of the Imperial Palace (Hofburg) and other concert of Mozart and Strauss music, which included ballet and opera in the Imperial Summer Palace (Schönbrunn). These concerts are played all the year in convenient hours, so a busy tourist, who is visiting the city in a short time, can get a place for enjoying.

In summer, you cannot miss the Annual Movies Festival in the Rathaus (Town Hall). You can eat and drink before the exhibition of famous pictures and videos. I couldn’t attend it because I went outside Vienna with my family, for visiting various regions of Austria by car. This is another chapter of my stay in Austria that I prefer to detail it in other day.

For the lovers of opera and theater, there are many possibilities too. I don’t have time to detail them but you really will enjoy them.

And for the fanatic of pop music, there are rock and modern music concerts all the year in Rathaus (Town Hall) or in Schönbrunn. Next october it will be a mega concert in memory of Michael Jackson in Schönbrunn Palace. I am not sure if I will get a ticket for the concert, but if not, I can go to other cultural activities that are programmed for next autum and winter.

It is difficult to choose which place to go with so many posibilities, isn’t it?